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Minister, mayor clash over land
Arief Wismansyah (Tangerang kota
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Arief Wismansyah (Tangerang kota.go.id)
Tangerang Mayor Arief Wismansyah is in the spotlight after openly challenging Law and Human Rights Minister Yasonna Laoly in one of the most detrimental land conflicts between regional and central authorities.
The 42-year-old mayor has refused to back down, even after the minister, in a rare move, pressed criminal charges against him.
The conflict centers on the construction of two polytechnics on a piece of land owned by Yasonna’s office in the satellite city.
The Tangerang administration has insisted that the Law and Human Rights Ministry should not use all the land for the two campuses but spare some for public or social facilities. The ministry, meanwhile, retorted that it had already allowed the administration to use some of its 181-hectare plot of land for other purposes.
While inaugurating the polytechnics on July 9, the minister lashed out at the administration for dragging its feet in issuing construction permits for the 22-ha campuses.
“The [ministry] should take care of the permits regarding [the polytechnics] because the mayor is not friendly toward the ministry,” Yasonna was quoted as saying by tempo.co.
Arief was apparently stung by the criticism and sent a letter to Yasonna to seek clarification of his statement.
He then instructed his subordinates to cut off public amenities, such as street lighting and waste collection, at several ministry-owned properties in the town, including immigration offices, prisons and housing complexes, amid the dispute between the two institutions.
Yasonna in turn reported Arief to the police.
“We have reported the mayor to the police because he has broken the law,” ministry spokesman Bambang Wiyono told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday over the phone.
He declined to elaborate on the legal charges, but Yasonna told reporters at the State Palace that the Law and Human Rights Ministry accused the Tangerang administration of illegally building offices on ministry land.
In his defense, Arief said his hands were tied by the law. He explained that about 30 percent of city’s open space was located on land belonging to the ministry.
He further said the administration would be in violation of regulations if it issued the permits, namely Regional Regulation No. 5/2017 on spatial planning (RTRW) in Banten for 2010-2030 and Regional Regulation No. 5/2014 on the protection of agricultural land for sustainability in the province. That, he said, was the main reason the administration had refused to issue permits for the polytechnics.
Arief, who has been the mayor since 2014, said that in the past some of the Law and Human Rights Ministry’s land had been used by farmers. Construction of the polytechnics started in November last year.
The Agrarian and Spatial Planning Ministry has mapped the agricultural land in the town using aerial photography. It has listed the land owned by the Law and Human Rights Ministry as agricultural land.
Arief said vegetables used to be grown on the land.
Tangerang Public Order Agency (Satpol PP) personnel repeatedly sealed off the construction site of the polytechnics prior to their inauguration. However, the move did not stop developers from building the colleges, which can accommodate at least 2,000 students.
The Law and Human Rights Ministry, meanwhile, has involved the Indonesian Ombudsman (ORI) to serve as mediator in the dispute. “We have received a letter from Pak Yasonna. He wants us to be the mediator between the Tangerang mayor and the Law and Human Rights Ministry,” ORI commissioner Adrianus Meliala told the Post.
After being reported to the police, Arief went to the State Palace, where Yasonna was attending a Cabinet meeting led by President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo.
The Tangerang Police said they were studying the ministry’s report against Arief and declined to provide details of the case.
In the meantime, Arief is preparing to report the ministry to the police.
“It’s OK [that the ministry has reported me to the police]. In fact, I think it’s good. So we will clearly know who it was that violated the law. We are also preparing our report [for them],” he told reporters recently. (das)
